If Skarner's slow was so toxic, why is his pick rate, ban rate, and win rate so stinkin' low? Honestly, its not toxic enough according to the data.

Speaking of DATA, I would like to say that back in the "Skarner, I miss your kind" thread, I pointed out that contrary to the conclusions of RIOTSCRUFFY on page 9(?) Skarner's slow was not even complained about by the majority of the people who had already commented. Many, in fact, praised it as one of the most rewarding parts of his Kit.

According to ACTUAL data, his ultimate was listed as the #1 most "unfun" part of playing AGAINST a skarner, not his slow...

Instead of attacking the ult, however, he said that the ult was THE defining feature of who skarner was.

But where should I get that, the “not communicating” part of Scruffy is hard to copy & paste, I could see if I find 40: “ **** you Scruffy ” comments in this thread but I doubt that this will help.

Compare his responses to stock computer-generated responses. All positive and meant for customer satisfaction, when it really feels condescending.

Point out with quotes how in other threads Rioters acknowledge ideas and critiques, while in Skarner's threads he doesn't acknowledge anyone except the ones that said "there's not enough CC" over 10 hours after everyone's been complaining that he isn't even remotely like the old champion; how he completely dulled a unique champion.

Show how everyone critiqued his changes from concept to PBE to Live, but he pushed it through anyway to watch it become a massive failure.

If you want Morello to respond, you're gunna have to dig for all of that.

I feel like the current Skarner hasn't so much deviated from the original flavor that even Rioters explained (a Jungle beast waiting for to spring out of the jungle) as it has flown off the railroad tracks and tumbled eighteen times.

Honestly, I don't feel the dueling power. The dueling power was only increased in the matter of a sustained fight. Skarner was clearly not designed for this meta given today's focus on burst, otherwise I think we'd see Swain all day. In a fight 5-6 seconds long, yes, his offensive power is increased, but was that worth the net decrease in effectiveness that his other changes incurred? Skarner is still absolutely decimated by counterganks, and that's fine: they broke him before his rework so it can remain a big weakness, and Skarner's not going to go invading because of how important his first set of buffs are, the massive ramp up his Q needs to be effective, and that once he's in the jungle he has no reliable way out: his E if he has it will be on cooldown, and an autoattack from many champions at level 2, disregarding ANY ability damage, will break his shield and his slow.

Re: Shield. Long story short, his Shield is weak, the scaling is nice, but it's a red herring that makes you think that you'll actually be able to build AP to buff it up. I feel like Riot missed a massive opportunity with his Shield. At first I thought the ramp-up of speed was strange. Well, really it still is. But for a champion that is focused by the community and Riot on speed, hot, greasy speed, why does it scale with AP? Why not increase the Shield's strength based on how far he travels? Give Skarner an incentive to use the shield properly.

Re: Fracture. I actually think it's not terrible. It's really strange and the cooldown is absurdly high at low levels when Skarner is very physically fragile and just like the old Fracture, the flavor of the skill just doesn't feel like it works well with the character at all. That being said, I don't know a way to improve it so I'll just leave it there.

Overall, my biggest concern with Skarner as he is is how important levels are. One level of drop between you and other players is a death's sentence, given what Skarner gains in each of his abilities. He has to level Q for camps and to have any of this "dueling potential" that reds seem to want to tout, so that's in. But then he has a choice. Either he can have a shield that might survive a single hit from the enemy, or he can increase his slow. Oh, and if he chooses the slow, he subsequently will be slower himself. Choosing one or the other significantly harms his jungle/gank tools. I don't feel like I gain anything powerful for choosing one skill over another, and that's what should happen. I should feel like I'm giving up a significant power in exchange for another, but instead Skarner's entire leveling choice between W and E feels painful and flat out unfun.

TL;DR: Skarner's skills are a hodgepodge mess that conflict with his character flavor. My suggestions would be one of the above: give his Exoskeleton scaling other than AP so it could be a decent, but not overwhelming 1 point choice (my favorite is +Shield based on distance traveled) OR do the same thing for his E (same base slow as now but increase based on the distance the opponent has traveled in the last X seconds, making Skarner's CC very effective against mobile champions). I feel like I either choose function (E) or skills that actually feel good and flavorful (W) when leveling. Dueling power is increased, but only situationally and isn't worth the loss of power elsewhere.

This has been very useful feedback and looking at early data suggests that he's struggling much more in the early game than the late game. I'm tentatively looking to put together some changes for next patch:

A few things about these changes:
-We don't want to over buff him and have to nerf him again in the future, so keep that in mind.
-We want to make E a much better 1 point ability to help his early ganks
-We want to generally increase the CC payoff for hitting the E because of the difficulty/risk of landing it

This has been very useful feedback and looking at early data suggests that he's struggling much more in the early game than the late game. I'm tentatively looking to put together some changes for next patch:

A few things about these changes:
-We don't want to over buff him and have to nerf him again in the future, so keep that in mind.
-We want to make E a much better 1 point ability to help his early ganks
-We want to generally increase the CC payoff for hitting the E because of the difficulty/risk of landing it